As best as anyone around here can remember, the name “Sarah” was given to our school in honour of two great “mothers” of our nation: Sarah Imeinu and Sarah Schenirer. It is, we hope, in the spirit of their lives and teachings that the staff and students of Machon Sarah are led.
In 1917, as a young woman, Sarah Schenirer founded Bais Yaakov, Poland’s first organization of schools for Jewish girls (Rabbi S.R. Hirsch had begun such a school in Frankfurt, a half century earlier). Later, she opened a vitally important teachers’ seminary in which to train the future leaders of this new movement.
Those of her students who survived the Second World War carried her dream and passion to North America and Israel, establishing the schools, institutions and families that would become the very foundation of the immense Torah growth we’ve happily witnessed.
Today, in any given year, there are more than ten thousand girls enrolled in Bais Yaakov high schools throughout North America. Machon Sarah of Ottawa participates fully and proudly in this monumental movement.
For a deeper appreciation of Sarah Schenirer, read this article (an Acrobat PDF file - borrowed from the pages of Jewish Observer via echinuch.org). For a poweful look at a lost world, see the book, “Vanquish the Dragon” (Perel Benisch – Feldheim), an account of how Frau Schenirer’s students demonstrated sublime spiritual greatness and selflessness under the worst imaginable circumstances: the Holocaust. For another example, see a story about Auschwitz’ “White Angel”.
